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AMERICAN MINGEI
In the early 1900’s Soetsu Yanagi, a Japanese philosopher and friend of Bernard Leach
and Shoji Hamada, composed the word “mingei” to mean “art of the people”. (page 94,
“The Unknown Craftsman:An Insight into Beauty.”) These three men traveled the world
preaching and professing Mingei and the “art of the people”. Their influence affected all
of the crafts, all over the world, not just clay. I am not a writer, but an observer who tries
to put thoughts into words. This brief article is about what I feel has been overlooked
here in the United States, right before our eyes. There are many wonderful books on the
subject, some listed below, and what I would like to do is spotlight observations of mine
concerning Mingei right here in the United States. In order to create a perspective for this
article, I started hand building and slip casting pottery in high school in 1961 in Morris,
Illinois. When I asked my teacher Mr. Joe Corsello how I could become a potter, he said I
should go to college and become an art major. I hadn’t planned to go to college and I
wasn’t crazy about being an art major, but certainly there weren’t any potters around,
since they were drummed out 100 years prior by the industrial revolution, refrigeration,
glass, and plastic. So I went to Illinois State University and luckily for me, they had a
great Art Department and a Ceramics Department run by Mr. Jim Wozniak. The art
departments at the time, throughout the country, were exploding with growth and mainly
influenced by the “New York Art Scene” which was at that time Abstract Expressionism.
I’m sure every student did at least one Jackson Pollock style glazed pot, and yes, we
made pots in those days. We saw the bold brush strokes of Franz Kline’s and Willem de
Kooning’s paintings, we saw oriental calligraphic brush work in the books, and we tried
to emulate those onto our pots. We bought Japanese water color brushes and tried to copy
the strokes of Franz Kline and Toshiko Takaezu and other images we saw in the few
books available back then.
Our text book was Glenn Nelson’s “Ceramics: A Potter’s Handbook” which included
historical examples of pottery as well as all the technical aspects of pottery making. But
the strongest influence on American clay at the time was Oriental aesthetics because of
Bernard Leach, Shoji Hamada, and Soetsu Yanagi’s travels and writings. It was great
coincidental timing of University growth and their lectures around the world. They had
visited and lectured in the United States in the 50’s and of course Leach’s book “A
Potter’s Book” was written, I believe in the early 40’s. Since the northern potter had been
extinct for nearly 100 years, there was no tradition for us to lean on, no master potters to
learn from. As I have written before, our contemporary tradition is Academic, born in the
1950’s. It would take the United States Army, drafting me out of graduate school in 1968
before I would be introduced to some of the last true American folk potters still working
in the southeastern United States in Georgia and North Carolina.
There is much written about and by Bernard Leach, Shoji Hamada, and their friend Dr.
Soetsu Yanagi who in 1972 wrote his famous “The Unknown Craftsmen-A Japanese
Insight Into Beauty”. We learned about the influence of Zen on Art, the tea ceremony, we
learned about the word Mingei that Dr. Yanagi coined for the description of “art of the
people”. The Oriental aesthetic was without question the major influence on 20th Century
Ceramic Art from the 1950’s , with carry over to this day because of these three men. We
learned about feldspar explosion from feldspathic rock in the clay melting in the firing.
We learned about “seashell” cuts on the feet from twisted cut off wires. We developed an
appreciation for non symmetry, the beauty of ash glazes, and wood fired pots. We learned
about Shigaraki, Tamba, Onda, and Tokaname pots from 100’s of years ago, and of
course Sung and Tang dynasty pots. Our influence was historical pots, not so much the
contemporary work, except for Hamada and a few others. Also missing was a broad
exposure to all the many types and philosophies of pottery made in Japan, we pretty
much just read about Mashiko and Hamada. For instance Kyoto and Arita had porcelain
traditions, but we learned little about them as they did not fit into the “Mingei” mold and
the crude clays of Mashiko and non symmetry coincided more closely with Abstract
Expressionism here in the United States. Can you envision Volkous trying to work with
porcelain? Realize that there are potters awarded National Living Treasure status in all
types of pottery in Japan, not just Mashiko Mingei. Misunderstandings of Hamada not
signing pots, Americans over looking, or forgetting that the box the pot came in had to be
signed in order for the pot to have full value and identity. I am also a collector and I have
learned that signed, marked, and/or dated pots are always of more value, historically and
monetarily. A Shoji Hamada plate without a signed box may only fetch half it’s value.
Tatsuzo Shimaoka stamped his pots with the first two initials of Tatsuzo and stamped
pieces bring more money than unstamped, and a stamped pot with it’s signed box
bringing the highest value.
This was all well and good until I started seeing the same thing in the southern mountains
of Georgia , South Carolina, and North Carolina. I have collected northern salt glazed
stoneware,(picture 1,2,3), which was an American tradition also, but the pots from the
North Carolina have moved me the most. These nineteenth century pots are exactly what
Dr. Yanagi was talking about, Mingei folk pots made by unknown craftsmen executing
“design from necessity”. It wasn’t an attempt to make art, maybe not even craft, it was
just what they did, because many times, that’s what their father did, or they married into a
pottery family. The slip decorated Celadon glazed stoneware of Edgefield, South
Carolina in the 1820’s to the 1850’s exemplified by Thomas Chandler(picture 4,5,6) is an
amazing story in and of itself. How did this happen here in the United States at that time?
The alkaline glaze tradition was carried from Edgefield, South Carolina to Candler, North
Carolina just west of Asheville by the Penland and Stone families(picture 7,8) and they
developed their family pottery traditions that lasted 6 generations. Equal to the incredible
pots that Thomas Chandler made in South Carolina, Daniel Seagle brought the alkaline
glaze tradition to the Catawba Valley area of Hickory and Vale, North Carolina making
incredible ware and adding his personal touch.(Catawba valley9,10,11,12,13,14) Further
east the potters used more of the salt glaze tradition in the Jugtown and Seagrove areas of
the Piedmont. I am going to call all of these traditions “American Mingei”. I am also
going to say that these incredible pots that move us so deeply are about the “rightness of
material, process, and form”. They are Mingei. Although mostly unsigned, family
potteries developed their signature lips, handles, glazes, and forms. Once identified by a
signed piece, the others are easily documented. The photographs show all of the same
aesthetic criteria we learned in art school from oriental pottery and it was made right here
in the United States, in the same way, for all the same reasons. The potters used clay from
the ground around them; ash glazes, single fired groundhog wood fired kilns, and made
pots for everyday use for every household. Plates, mugs, pitchers, coffee and tea pots,
canning jars, and storage jars for the food to get them through the winters, liquor and
molasses jugs, and of course for moonshine too. After being prompted by my friend Don
Pilcher as to why I thought it happened here, far away from Oriental aesthetics, it is my
bet that none of these potters, Chinese, Korean, Japanese, or North Carolinian were
consciously executing any sort of “aesthetic”, they just did what they did. It was other
people like the tea ceremony masters and Dr. Yanagi who classified and labeled these
great pots, not the potters. That verifies in my mind that it is about “nonchalant use of
material, process, and form executed for “design by necessity”. It brings up another
unanswerable question, “why do a few potters simply have the eye and hand to make
great pots regardless of training”? Why did Thomas Chandler and Daniel Seagle stand
out so far above all the rest in the 1850’s? I encourage lovers of pottery to investigate
what was made right here in the United States during the 19th century. The problem for
young potters today, who are not getting University art training in “The Art of the
Potter”, is where do you go for inspiration and training? How do you assimilate the
“rightness” of these folk pots into your own individual statement and in a contemporary
way? We don’t need canning jars or liquor jugs, but what part of that Mingei aesthetic
can you inject into your 21st century pots. I think it is silly to try to make Japanese pots,
or Korean pots, or Chinese pots here in the United States, but how do you ASSIMILATE
THE RIGHTNESS? Ken Ferguson once talked to me about “nonchalance” and Mingei
pots certainly have that, east or west, but I see far too many potters today consciously
trying to be nonchalant. As the saying goes, “it ain’t going to happen”. Don’t look to the
other side of the world, look right in front of you and learn about American Mingei.
These incredible pots that I collect speak some sort of foreign language that is heard deep
within me. The aesthetic Soetsu Yanagi talked about as the “seeing eye of Japan”, Helen
Keller expressed it as; “The best and most beautiful things in life cannot be seen, not
touched, but are felt in the heart.” Yes we can see these pots, feel these pots, but true
communication hits something deep inside and it’s because of what I call “the rightness
of material, process, and form”. If I had grown up near Lanier Meadors or W.J. Gordy in
Georgia, or Dorothy and Walter Auman or Burlon Craig in North Carolina, my pottery
would probably be quite different. I am sure there were educators in the south who were
aware of these potteries, but this article is about those of us educated in the north in the
60’s who did not have access to this information.
If you want to see this American Mingei, come visit my ceramic art museum, look at
books, go to antique shows, and visit Museums like the Mint Museum of Art in Charlotte,
North Carolina. American Mingei was alive and well in the 19th century here in the
mountains. The following books are but a few available to get you started in your quest to
learn more about these wonderful pots. There were other areas of pottery in the
Southeast, but I am only mentioning a few in this brief article.
Recommended reading:
The many books written by Bernard Leach
The Unknown Craftsman-A Japanese insight Into Beauty, Soetsu Yanagi
Turners and Burners: The Folk Potters of North Carolina by Charles Zug
Raised In Clay by Nancy Sweezy
Brothers in Clay documenting Georgia Folk Potters by John A. Burrison
Great and Noble Jar: The Traditional Stoneware of South Carolina by Cinda Balwin
American Stoneware by Dr. Georgeanna Greer
The Potter’s Eye by Mark Hewitt and Nancy Sweezy
Photographs are by Tom Turner and are of pieces from his collection. Tom Turner is a
potter, artist, educator, collector, historian, researcher, and pottery lover living near Mars
Hill, North Carolina. He can be reached at www.tomturnerporcelain.com .